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I know that I obsess about time. How quickly it passes. How quickly it changes. But it's good to watch time. It's good to know time. And sometimes, it's good to sit back and appreciate time. Time gives you perspective.

You know, these days, a lot of us don't have much time and we get impatient if things take too much time.

Take Iraq. To hear some news commentators tell it, it's a waste of time. Sort of like that Vietnam time. All this, based on 12 months of time.

What would 24-hour news channels said of George Washington (search) 12 months into his war with the British? Would they call it a quagmire too? After all, he hadn't won a single battle at that point.

Or Abe Lincoln? If memory serves me right, 12 months into the Civil War, his side was getting its butt kicked. Was his a military boondoggle too?

And would this generation have the patience of the greatest generation after World War II? It took a pretty long time to establish peace and then rebuild Europe. And more than five years to get Japan going again.

How would breathless journalists today have covered those efforts then?

I can hear the news bulletins now. "Tattered Europe on our G.I. Bill."

"Is Japan Worth Fixing?"

And on and on.

It's a good thing news crews didn't follow Ulysses Grant. Or action-cams cover every kamikaze mission long after we vanquished the Japanese. The Civil War might not have turned out the way it did and maybe Japan would still be an enemy.

Time teaches us a lot. And sometimes, it seems to teach us... nothing at all.

Watch Neil Cavuto's Common Sense weekdays at 4 p.m. ET on Your World with Cavuto.